Kesser’s Return - Part 3
This note is from our November 5, 2017 session and was mostly written by Carl and Kay with additional material provided by myself.
Since we are now scattered around the country, we used Teamspeak for voice communications and Roll20 online virtual tabletop to connect with each other.Continued from Kesser’s Return, Part 2 .
Imperial Date: 030-1107 Location: The Shionthy System in the Regina Subsector.
030-1107 0330
On the Kesser, just off a fight with... well, not sure what, so let's go with Zombies. Space Zombies, yeah. Space Zombies with tentacles.
Major Tom (Major Thomas Whitmore) : "I think Sgt. Winters and I should join you over there."
Dr. Andrea Skorski: "I would like to join you in engineering as soon as you think it is safe."Fig: “This ‘Markelson’ thing talking to us may or may not be 'real'. Could be good advice, could be a trap.” Our comm to Markelson goes through Medicus who communicates to him by typing on his wristpad and shares over the radio.
Asking Markelson about the Whale, and he says 'what whale?' As far as he knows, no one else has entered the ship.The Gig went back to the Armstrong for Major Tom and Sergeant Sarah Winters.
Capt. Natalie Weaver: "The Whale should be making turnover in about 20 minutes, if it fails to turnover it means that maybe no one is in control."Medicus types to Markelson, “We heard there was another ship that was going to come here but we had no confirmation about it”.
Dr. Kenneth Markelson: "It would be very bad if it did. That being could get on board. It would mean that it is no longer on the Kesser and is on the other ship, doing terrible things to the crew.”“It seems to have control over biological life. Being able to change it for its own use.”
Medicus: “Can it actually emulate a human being so we would not know the difference?”
Markelson: “I don’t know... it seems to be learning our biology.”
0345The gig docks with the Armstrong.
0355
Maj. (Tom) Whitmore: "We are docking with the Kesser, will be joining you soon."
0400
Capt.
Natalie Weaver: "The Whale should have turned over by now, but we won’t
get confirmation for another 22 minutes due to the distance."
As we advance though the ship, we jammed doors we don't plan to use right away. We didn’t want anything blocking our way back to the main airlock and we also did not want anything we released to be able to find a place to hide. Mostly we didn’t want anything still moving in the ship to sneak up behind us – especially with tentacles.
The galley area is a disaster, everything smashed or torn open. Systematic damage rather than the random damage we found elsewhere.
Walking into the engine room, it is in good condition with just the rear airlock door welded closed.
Kipenzi and Leon try to shut down the drives.
Life support was still on - would be true if no one had been alive for a long time and nothing got used up. Leon and Kipenzi couldn't figure out the life support system well enough to tell.
Trying to shut down jump drive, Kipenzi failed but Leon to the rescue - no jumping today...
Maneuver drive also shut down. At 800 tons, the Kesser could do some real damage if it was to ram the Skylark or even the larger Armstrong.
The fuel tanks are low but not empty, Dr. Skorski says that is possible under some conditions, even with a three year time frame if the ship didn’t maneuver and the power plant stayed on standby.
Checking rooms going back up the corridor. Staterooms, all in much better shape than the rest of the ship.
We find a dead body: Medical Officer Yu Chen was in her room, her medical kit beside her. It looked like she injected herself with a death shot. That vs being eaten by zombies (or turned into one of them)... Understandable.
0422
Dr. Andrea Skorski : “I would like to join you before you go out to the nacelle.”
Medicus: “Please stay were you are. Thanks.”
Capt. Natalie Weaver: “The Whale made a turnover... very odd. They did not cut their engines when they rotated the ship to decelerate. Still no comm from them.”We continued our room check as we headed toward the front of the Kesser.
0432Sgt. Waters gets a vision of despair, suicidal thoughts. It passes. Others do too, Medicus is the only one to say so out loud.
Note: Get new null-psi helmets all around if we survive this.
Moving back up the corridor toward the bridge, clearing rooms as we went.
Bodies in room 5 (Foster and Morricone) had twitched in response to the camera moving earlier. Leaving them alone and jammed in for now.
Markelson is allegedly in room 6, still haven't heard from Dr. Skorski as she talks to him as she tries to figure out if it is really him in there.
Dr. Andrea Skorski: “That is Dr. Kenneth Markelson... still himself. Wants to go to Rhylanor and to have his brain transplanted into a robot body... that is typical of him.”
We Discussed with Armstrong about what to do with the bodies.
Markelson's room was cluttered and messy, like a mad scientist’s quarters would be expected to look like. Kipenzi noticed a note pad with a 6 digit number: 95973.
The room seems to be unchanged since before the Kesser’s ill fated jump.
Dr. Rosenburg checked on Dr. Russel and reports that she is still walking in the rear access bay on Skylark.
We have a short discussion whether breathable air in the Kesser means, with the 3 years on the clock, that no one is alive (or at least no one using oxygen).
Could be different dimensions disrupted the clocks and they are not trustable.
Dr. Ivan Onassis: “Julian is coming up, I should be able to talk with him soon.”
Time to head toward the bridge and check out the last rooms before trying to get the 'people' out and back.
Fig: “Oh swell, the blue mist area... what could go wrong?”
Medicus asked Dr. Markelson what the blue mist is, he replied that he had not seen it and didn’t know.
0445: Leon asks the military if they have an EMP generator they can deploy, maybe it will affect the blue mist if it becomes necessary. Sadly, they don't.
Asking Markelson what he has been eating to stay alive, he typed that " Nothing at all, I have not even been hungry, which is good since I would have a lot of mouths to feed."
Did he trash the galley? He replied “No”.
Julian came up online and started talking with Dr. Ivan Onassis.
Julian: “Good morning, Dr. Onassis, good to talk with you again.”
Dr. Onassis introduces all of us to Julian and asks the obvious question: “What happened?”
Julian Replies, “The mission began according to plan and the drive system worked correctly. However, when we arrived in beta space, we were detected by the inhabitants of this space.
The telescope shows horrible beings, some bigger than the Kesser, with strange protrusions and orifices.
The engineers welded the rear airlock closed, but the beings forced their way on board via the center airlock.
They captured some of the crew and did terrible things to them.
Dr. Markelson ordered me to try to take the ship back to normal space, but the creatures around the outside of the ship prevented this. As such, the Kesser remained trapped in beta space.
I regret to inform you that I did not prove strong enough to endure this experience. I experienced a cascade of erratic operations and eventually my core processes began to fail. However, I was able to lock in the process that would bring the Kesser back to normal space.
I am not certain why it happened, but the creatures on board the Kesser departed quite suddenly, leaving behind only one of their number. The larger beings holding the Kesser in place also departed. This seems to have triggered a fortuitous moment of lucidity on my part and I was able to regain control of the ship.
As per Dr. Markelson's orders I returned the Kesser to normal space. As per mission protocol, I contacted the station and then suffered a final system failure. I went into standby mode, but my recording systems remained active. They are, after all, not linked to my higher functions. Much as you continue to hear and feel while asleep, I continued to hear and see while in my state of unconsciousness.
Before you arrived, two men came aboard the Kesser and were attacked by the remaining creature. One returned to the vessel and then the creature went onboard the ship. The ship then departed. I infer that the crew of that ship is now being harmed by the creature.
Then you arrived and restored me to my normal operations.”
Julian then warned the crew that viewing the actual videos can be psychologically damaging and will strongly recommend against it.
“What happened to the camera in Room 6?”
Julian replied, “Dr. Markelson turned it off.”
Kipenzi told Medicus to tell Dr. Markelson to turn the camera back on.
Dr. Kenneth Markelson said, “I have warned you that I have a rather horrific appearance... but you will need to see me eventually if I am to leave the ship.”
Camera on, definitely cringe-worthy, and a wanting a brain transfer is understandable for sure.
Dr. Kenneth Markelson
Medicus tells Markelson to stay in his room as we have not cleared the entire ship yet.Captain Weaver directed that the Armstrong’s sensors look for the missing crew member from the Whale. Lt. Heather Roam found the body of the other Whale crew member, drifting in space nearby a few minutes later.
None of the three 'people' onboard are breathing now. Foster and Morricone are in better shape, were put back together more properly, before the creatures left.We recommend towing the Kesser back for research, and recovering the bodies for study when the ship is in a more controllable situation, and nuking the Whale.
Nothing else we can do.Markelson agrees to ride back with the ship, having little choice in the matter.
Julian put us in intercom contact with the bridge. The blue mist faded out briefly and the Kesser’s Captain Hillary S. Clanson appears and talks with Julian. Julian introduced us all, and we had a conversation.We found the captain's body in another part of the ship, so we are not sure what exactly she is. She is fuzzy in memory but otherwise feels sorta normal. She does not realize a LOT of time has passed. She does not even notice that some of the bridge panels are smashed - looks like the panels are working for her...
The captain knows everyone is dead, thinks she is a survivor. Happy to hear that Dr. Markelson appears alive too.Julian shows the captain the current Dr. Markelson, she gasps! She wants to fire up the ship and take it back to the station.
Captain Weaver talks some to her, speculates it is her ghost...
The doctors want the two bodies looked at (Foster and Morricone). Captain Weaver decides to send in the marines...
Talking over intercom to Foster and Morricone does not work, so in with the Marines.
Lt. Carla Brown goes in with Sgt. Sara Winters at the door, prodding one of them with a broom.
Dozens of eyes open up, several on each tear-drop shaped segment, and Moricone and Foster fall apart into little fishy things (about 8 inches long and 3 inches wide) that swim through the air in the zero-g toward the Marines.
Lt. Brown tries to get out and close door, but these little suckers are FAST and some try to jump onto the Marine. One attached itself to the Lieutenant’s elbow and one to her right forearm. A third one leaps at him but misses and slams into the wall, apparently dead or at least stunned.
The little thing starts grinding through the armor with rows of little teeth while secreting a corrosive acid. Lt. Brown tries to squash both against the wall and her armor. Sgt. Winters uses his laser rifle on one.
Some hand to hand combat ensued - except for one marine who panicked and blasted off a shotgun... in a corridor, a narrow corridor, with civilians on the other side of the target.... ai yi yi! Who trains these people....!!!!
Leon says: "What the hell?"
They managed to kill them, but not before one had breached Lt. Brown’s suit and started munching on her elbow.
Checking the cameras, we see the rest of the fish things re-assemble into Foster and Morricone back in their chairs, minus their dead members.
Leon: “hopefully these things will dissipate with the energy from beta space.”
We re-stressed that our contract has been fulfilled, and while we might negotiate for towing the Kesser back we are pretty well done.
Captain Clanson reverted back to the blue mist.
Dr. Skorski convinced the Captain to let her on the Kesser to look at the drive, especially the secret components... and especially NOT telling Markelson that she's about to take a look, as he's been so secretive for YEARS.
Lt. Brown goes back to the gig to get a new vacc suit, since her suit has holes from being attacked by those fish things. Dr. Rosenburg orders her into quarantine on the Armstrong.
The Skylark crew, being experts, decide to go back to the Skylark 2 and warm up the popcorn.
Kipenzi says, “I should have put money on this.”
Sam replies, “I wouldn't have taken the bet.”
Leon says, “The AI can bring the drive back up but it can't jump and not enough fuel to jump into Beta space.”
Using the remote cameras, we watch Dr. Skorski look at the drive area, it looks somewhat like an autodoc instead of an engine (according to Medicus, back on the Skylark, eating popcorn).
Dr. Skorski opens the compartment with the code we found earlier, it revealed latches and more equipment.
Opening the cover revealed a desiccated corpse, minus arms and legs, wearing a psi-like helmet.
Dr. Skorski screams, pretty much convincing us that she had no previous knowledge of this.
Good thing because this tech is clearly ILLEGAL in Imperial Space, since it is a Psi device.
Plus, someone was killed - likely three others too, as there were four "critical drive components".
Some kind of psi-energy hooked into a jump drive opened the gate to the beta universe. Dr. Skorski thinks maybe the bodies called for help and attracted the thingies, and the bodies were alive when they were put in here, they probably died when their life support packs ran out. Possibly why the creatures left, after torturing the crew - which now makes some kind of sense.
It is very unlikely that Dr. Markelson could have done this alone... i.e. he didn’t have the technical background to create the autodoc components and put these people in there.
The Armstrong crew gasps when they see this; to Imperials, psionics are evil. Second thought - who could make this? and what could the Zhodani do with something like this? They'd probably ban it too, come to think of it.
So Dr. Markelson is another type of monster. And he couldn't have done this all by himself.
So... Shionthy is another system we really, really do NOT want to come back to - ever.
We send Dr. Russell and the medical staff over to the Armstrong. The headless woman is their problem now.
The Whale was still decelerating toward Socrates station and not yet in weapons range.
The Armstrong tells the station about the crew members from the Whale.
The Armstrong was still live streaming the video from Dr. Skorski when she opened the "drive components".
No way for the J7 Foundation to keep this quiet - AT ALL.
It looks pretty grim for the J7 Consortium.
031-1107 0652
The Whale reached
its minimum velocity short of Socrates Station and started moving away.
A little later it rotated and aimed toward Socrates. It is almost as if
the ship is being flown without a computer by someone who is just
eyeballing it.
When it came into weapons range, the defensive weaponry blew it to pieces. Hard kill with extreme prejudice. Hostile alien life-form or no, it was a hazard to navigation and they didn’t want it slamming into the starport.
By this time the Skylark 2 was already heading toward Achilles Station with an ETA of 036-1107, we should be docking about 1000. By then everyone should be well rested, if they can sleep at all after this.At least we didn't miss out on any Ancient Tech...
Continued in Prelude to Justice.
**
Carl OOC: Did you get this crap from a Call of Cthulhu module???
Terry (DM): Yes.
**See Also: Dramatis Personæ, Skylark 2, Campaign Starts, The 2nd Adventure, The Chamax Plague, Horde, Shadows, Research Station Gamma, Twilight's Peak, Prison Planet, Leedor on Aramis, First Call at Zilla, Trade War, The Bloodwell, ANNIC NOVA and The Kinunir.
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